1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic device, such as an electret condenser microphone, including, on the outer surface, a mounting orientation recognition mark required for automatic mounting onto a printed-circuit board or the like in an electronic apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Along with the size reduction of small-size information communication apparatuses such as cellular phones and PDAs, and electronic apparatuses such as digital still cameras and digital video cameras, printed-circuit boards mounted in these electronic apparatuses have been also miniaturized, thereby increasing the density of electronic devices which are automatically mounted onto the printed-circuit boards. Some electronic devices to be automatically mounted are required to be mounted onto a printed-circuit board such that the orientations thereof, as well as the positions, are in agreement with the printed-circuit board, due to the contour configurations. In many cases, such electronic devices are provided, on the outer surfaces, with mounting orientation recognition marks for use in automatic mounting of the components (for example, refer to JP-A No. 5-3400).
However, in the case of the aforementioned prior-art example, such mounting orientation recognition marks are generally provided on the outer surfaces of the cases of electronic devices by printing or the like, and therefore, there is a need for specific marking operations during the fabrication processes, which makes it difficult to reduce the cost of the electronic devices. Particularly, some electronic devices such as electret condenser microphones are provided with a plurality of input/output terminals on the outer surfaces which are subjected to image recognition during automatic mounting of the components, wherein these terminals have contour configurations surrounded by ground patterns. Accordingly, there is a small space for a mounting orientation recognition mark to be provided, which makes the marking operations complicated along with the size reduction of components, thereby causing cost increases.